Tell Hilary your cutest, goofiest, or most swoonfully romantic story of your “I do moment.” Then choose one of the designs on the Bunny with a Toolbelt Etsy site, her online album of cake toppers, or one you spotted hanging out at the Chapel of Bunny Love that she can use to illustrate your saga on her blog. Send a picture of the two of you to sweeten the pot,and she’ll publish your stories between now and 11:59 PM, Pacific Standard Time on May 15, 2011.

Then, we’ll let the voting begin. One winner will be determined by the one who gets the most unique comments from readers who will declare which story made them go “awwww!” or “ohhhhhh!” or “mmmmmmmmm!” A second winner will be selected by Hilary and an esteemed panel of judges, including Reverend Steve Sharp from A Beautiful Ceremony NW, Kimberly from Gator Bride {that’s me!}, and Rebecca Amblin from Origin Flowers.

Adorbs! Especially for those who have “little ones” and want to include them on their wedding day!Bunnywithatoolbelt

The two winners will get a custom cake topper set that Hilary will make with whatever critters make their hears go purrrrrrr!! She will also give you the keys to the castle where you can order custom invitations, big gifts for the wedding party, or little ones for the guests–all with the picture of your adorable Bunny with a Toolbelt wedding cake topper on them and whatever personalized text you like!

Please limit your entries to 500 words. This contest is intended for currently engaged couples. She’ll post them as they come in. Email your story to Hilary at bunnywithatoolbelt@gmail.com.

There are currently 2 blogged engaged couples so far. Only 2! So, if you’re engaged (or know someone engaged), submit your story and have your friends and family comment on your entry once it’s been published! You could be the winner of some very adorable cake toppers.

Now, I know y’all have seen the fabulous cake toppers Bunnywithatoolbelt made us for our wedding. Shoot, these little babies inspired this blog! I guess you can say, Gator Bride started with the commissioning of these little characters. Thank you Hilary for bringing our little mascots to life!

Here we are, just chillin’ on our wedding cake. ♥

Since then, Hilary has received quite a few commissions for custom college-themed cake toppers. Just recently she sent me an album featuring some of her adorable Gator creations, along with their stories. Check them out below. :)

This first topper was actually commissioned by the fabulous Kari, who helped me find my wedding dress (and who was also getting married). She asked Hilary to create a topper for her Groom’s cake that would incorporate the Gators, the video game Halo, and the band Coldplay. I’m pretty amazed at what Hilary came up with. Perfection!

This little topper was commissioned by a University of Florida Alum for his Groom’s cake. The topper features the Groom enjoying his favorite past time with his beloved German Shorthair pup.

Aren’t these two adorable? Easily one of the cutest cake toppers I’ve ever seen. They make me so happy. :) Oh my goodness, and the bride even has a mini veil! Love the details.

I think I can look at Gator cake toppers all day! :)

Now, on to a few cake toppers that are hard for my little Gator eyes to see. Oh, I feel for these Gator Brides marrying Seminole Grooms.

I’m actually totally digging how Hilary gave the Seminole Groom a little mohawk of feathers. Totally a different take on the Seminoles. I wonder if the Groom is a musician?

This set is probably one of my favorites. Not loving who it’s for (that team out west), but loving the inspiration. The bride and groom met in the marching band, so they wanted little cake toppers showing their team spirit and instruments. Mr. Knight and I both played the flute. We fell head over heels for each other in middle school band class, but didn’t start dating till high school.

These cake toppers really get me going. Poor Gator groom!!!

We loved our cake toppers Hilary made us, so much that we just didn’t want to keep them boxed up. This past Christmas we made them into ornaments for our tree. Currently, they are displayed prominently on a shelf in our living room. I get so much joy from seeing them everyday.

Did you have sentimental cake toppers? Where are your cake toppers now? Did you come up with a creative way to display them? I’d love to hear!

Also, be sure to check out Hilary’s Etsy shop. She has a few super cute bride and groom cake toppers that are on super sale! Oh, and if you want to see more of Hilary’s AMAZING custom cake toppers, check out her Picasa Album.

The tradition is that you save (by freezing) the top of your wedding cake, so that you can have a slice of it together on your 1 year Wedding Anniversary. When Mr. Knight and I got home from our honeymoon, we couldn’t wait to dig into our Wedding cake. At our Wedding we barely got to eat any of it’s deliciousness, so we were eager to finally get our slice of ‘tropical carrot cake’ heaven. Plus, we were given advice from our baker to eat the cake now, not later, as the whole freezing process is no bueno for the cake.

We followed the thawing directions given to us by our baker, and then slowly started to unwrap this baby for some sweet dessert after dinner one night. Okay, so maybe we were back from our honeymoon for all of 2 days when we decided it was time to eat our cake. :-)

Here I am, examining the cake and thinking about how yummy it is. I’m wearing my new shirt from Paia, Maui store Alice in Hulaland (super cute shop in hippie town).

Cutting the cake a 2nd time. We already had plates ready to eat up the scrumptiousness we were expecting.

Looks super yummy, right? But was it yummy? Not really. :-(

Our Consensus: Don’t wait to eat your cake, because after freezing the cake, it will taste nasty whether it was frozen for a year or 1 month. We were pretty depressed at the lack of yumminess.

We vow to order a small cake from the same baker in our beloved ‘tropical carrot cake’ on our 1 year anniversary (in 11 months). I placed the icky 1 month old cake back in our fridge, as Mr. Knight swore he would ‘snack’ on it over the course of the week. He didn’t touch it once. So in the trash it went, along with a tear or two.

Do you all plan to wait a year to devour your cake? Or are you planning to eat it when you return from your honeymoon?

A few weeks ago, okay… more like almost a month ago (I know.. I’ve been a bad little gator!), I had my Bridal Shower (thrown by the lovely Mama Knight). The result? Utter amazingness. *all images taken by Gator Bridesmaid.

When I walked in, I was greeted with this beautiful table arrangement in our wedding colors (aqua & yellow), along with my favorite flower – daisies, a picture of the Mister and I from our Blue Springs Shoot, and some seriously awesome favors from Yankee Candle “wedding day” scented. You might ask, what does “wedding day” scented candles smell like? Amazingness… that’s what! But really, like babies, but I love it. Our house smells amazingly fresh, and I’m saving that huge jar candle to burn in the bridal suite the day of. :-)

That Sunday was an absolutely beautiful day in Flagler Beach. The sun was shining and the weather was just so gosh darn beautiful. Just perfect.

Mama Knight crowned me with a beautiful daisy crown. She later said she was ‘passing the torch’ to me to take care of her son. I loved this image even more after she said that… cause boy did she pass a big torch on to me. Mr. Knight is quite high maintenance. Just kidding! Love you, my Knight in shining armor!!!! :-)

Sunny MOH and I enjoying the beautiful March weather!

Mama Knight and I digging into some yummy food! Those sandwiches were delicious!

After some socializing and yummy food, it was on to BRIDAL SHOWER GAMES! And as my friends and family know, I LOVE playing bridal games!!!!

Umm… how cute are Seminole Bridesmaid and Sunny MOH in this picture? And practically the same height? They are just too cute, I want to pick them up and put them in my pocket.

I got to choose the models for the “Toilet Paper Wedding Dress” game and I chose Seminole Bridesmaid, Sweet Bridesmaid and Gator Momma.

Team Seminole Bridesmaid doing their thang. I love Seminole Bridesmaid and Sunny MOH’s faces in this picture. Classic.

The overall winner was Chic Bride, do to the mere fact that her dress stayed together the longest and fully covered her. White Trash Bride, complete with toilet paper cigarette, won Most Creative, and Trial Princess Bride won Most Accessorized Bride, for wearing daisies, bows, gloves, belt, hat/turban thing, and train. I enjoyed watching the whole experience, it was pure hilariousness!

My family friends were incredibly sweet and generous. When I came home after the bridal shower and showed Gator Dad all my goodies, I told him that it felt like it had been my birthday times 10. I just couldn’t believe how amazing my bridesmaids and my family were to me, showering me with love, good times and gifts all weekend long.

As a ‘thank you’ gift to my lovely host, Mama Knight, I made her a basket of her favorite drink…. Mexican Coke!!!!

Complete with “Do not touch” tags for each!

Mama Knight loves Coca Cola, she must drink several of them a day. Even when she was sick in the hospital, Little Knight’s girlfriend brought her a case of Coke, that’s how much she loves it. I blame Mama Knight for the Coca Cola addiction I now have. :-) So when I found out that she wasn’t able to find her fav, Mexican Coke (because is contains natural sugar), I ran down to La Tienda (a Mexican restaurant and store here in Gainesville) and bought a few for her. Mr. Knight then took me out to Walmart to pick up the basket and colored paper (thank goodness the Easter stuff was already on the shelves). Add a few tags, here and there… and viola! You have a cute little basket for your hostest with the mostest!

I had an absolutely amazing bridal shower. It was even more then I ever dreamed. The work that all the women in my life did to make it come together means so much to me and I’m so so thankful. It has taken me this long to recap because there just was so much to say, and I wasn’t even able to say it all in this post. :-)

A few weekends ago, Mr. Knight and I made a trip home for a cake tasting at Heavenly Cheesecake in Holly Hill, FL. Sunny MOH had her cake made there. It was so incredibly delicious that I had TWO pieces at her wedding (which was immediately followed by a sugar high where I danced around her reception like a crazy mad women… but that is another story!).

When Mr. Knight and I arrived we were quickly seated and greeted with this:

From left to right: White Cream cake with Strawberry filling, Tropical Carrot Cake, and Chocolate Cream cake with Raspberry filling

Now I must say… Mr. Knight is NOT an icing person, so when I saw Mr. Knight not only eat ALL the icing on his samples, but the icing on MINE, I knew we had a winning baker. :-)

In the end we went with the Tropical Carrot Cake (made from scratch and with pineapple! What the baker calls a ‘true’ labor of love… which will come to bite us in the butt on cost), and White Cream Cake with Raspberry filling.

Mr. Knight posing with a square cake about the same size ours will be! Hooray!

I have to say I’m SUPER excited about our cake. Our cake is going to be delicious and makes me feel incredibly fancy… okay, maybe the ‘fancy’ part comes from the chic square silver cake stand we are renting for it.

Here comes my confession…

Mr. Knight and I had no idea how much our beautiful dream cake was going to cost in the end. We were really quite shocked when we were told the price. But, in retrospect we should have expected it. Not only did we pick out a more expensive icing (per Mr. Knight’s taste bud request), but we also picked out a labor intensive flavor (uh… that Tropical Carrot Cake is AMAZING) and the cake is rather large, feeding 165 people (and the layers are really thick and tall… so it could probably feed more). Why such a big cake to feed so many people, when we are only expecting 150… and possibly less?

Well.. Mr. Knight and I already know that this Tropical Carrot Cake is going to be a hit (heck… we wanted them to make us a cake to-go!) and we want to be ABSOLUTELY SURE we get as much Tropical Carrot Cake as we want… hence the top of the cake will be nicely perserved for eating after our honeymoon (as suggested by the baker) or on our 1 year anniversary.

If our cake is as delicious as Sunny MOH’s cake was… I’m sure it will be gone by the end of the night… cause I know I wasn’t the only person to eat two slices at her wedding!

When researching online (mostly to make myself feel better about our cake price), I found our cost per slice of cake is in the mid-range… which certainly eases my little Gator Bride mind. {ahhh}